Founder and publisher Hal Goodtree knew he was onto something with CaryCitizen when The New York Times referenced his coverage of the arrest of a local terrorism suspect on his site’s third day of existence. Although the town had a local newspaper The Cary News its coverage focused on other towns in addition to Cary and Goodtree felt that he could fill a niche by creating a news site with an upbeat and Cary-centric voice. Looking to fill this void Goodtree launched CaryCitizen in July 2009. One of the site’s first news items was about the arrest of seven alleged terrorists in Raleigh N.C. Realizing that one of the men arrested was a Cary High School graduate Goodtree was able to find his Facebook page and include pictures and relevant information from the page in his article. This coverage is one of the things of which Goodtree is most proud although CaryCitizen has grown exponentially since that time. The site had 250000 page views in 2010 its first full year in existence. Ninety percent of those visitors are located within a ten-mile radius of Cary a town of about 140000 people.